This article argues that Lesotho’s increasing reliance on aid leads to economic decline, worsening living standards and eventually poverty, thus obstructing sustainable development. Studies done in the country are silent about the effect of aid on poverty reduction and sustainable development. The study fills this missing link in the literature. Aid as a resource must help a country to enable its citizens to live beyond consumption by creating other activities that will in the long-run, reduce vulnerability and poverty; thus promoting sustainable development, which is contrary to what has been prevailing in Lesotho. The worst scenario in Lesotho is the post-independence period, where almost all aid combined failed to bring the desired changes in the lives of the majority and instead, increased vulnerability and poverty, and resulted in unsustainable development.
This study argues that unlike other parts of Africa where women are marginalized and excluded from accessing resources particularly land, women in Lesotho have been empowered through the Act that gives them access to land which had not been the case in the in the past decades. This has made women potential agents in driving the process of sustainable development in the urban echelon of Maseru. The specific objective of this study therefore is to show that women in Lesotho are important catalysts in the sustainable development of Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho. This has increased their ability not only to use land for settlement but also engaged in economic activities that contribute to Lesotho’s sustainable development. The study focused on three urban communities (Ha Foso, Sekamaneng, and Ha Matala) in Maseru. Purposeful sampling was engaged in selecting 80 female-headed households. It was discovered that women had both ownership and user rights of the land they occupied in their own capacity as household heads. The study has six sections: introduction, study objective, rationale, methodology, conceptual framework, study findings, conclusion.
This article argues that with the increasing urbanization in Maseru, the postindependence urban governance fails to provide adequate basic services to the growing population particularly poor areas, thus escalating poverty in these areas. Studies show a direct relationship between urban poverty and urban governance elsewhere in
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